From the editor’s desk

The business of religion

Bishops of the Anglican Communion were fortunate in their choice of speaker on Monday, because talking about the big picture is one of the things the Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, does best. He has an acute understanding of the role of religion in society, and an ability to use an attractive narrative style that those not of his persuasion can easily follow. Religion is important to the health and sustainability of societies not just because it can serve as a channel whereby one generation passes on its values to the next. That issue, for instance in the battle to defend faith schools against secular attack, is the more obvious one. But Sir Jonathan concentrated on another role of religion, what he called its "covenantal" aspect, which provides a moral framework to encourage building up the common good (an expression common to Jewish as well as to Catholic social teaching). Societies are an expression of a covenant, a voluntary mutual commitment between each member, and a commitment from each of them to the good of the whole. Maintaining and strengthening that covenant, he said, is the business of religion. 

His description of the prospects for a society that has lost touch with its religious beliefs, and the social covenant they sustain, was bleak. "Relationships break down," he declared. "Marriage grows weak. Families become fragile. Communities atrophy. And the result is that people feel vulnerable and alone. If they turn those feelings outward, the result is often anger turning to violence. If they turn them inward, the result is depression, stress-related syndromes, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse." It is a picture so sweeping that it might be criticised for claiming more for religion than religion can deliver. Jewish marriages break down, Christians suffer from depression, religion and violence are sometimes linked. But his broad point is that religion supplies a vital ingredient that is easily missed when society is examined from an exclusively secular perspective.

The recent Von Hügel Institute report, Moral But No Compass, criticised public authorities for failing to give due weight to the contribution to society made by religious bodies, either directly or through various voluntary agencies they have inspired. Official treatment of that contribution tended to view it as an optional extra, as if society could function quite well without it. On the contrary, the Chief Rabbi argued, over a period, crucial elements of the social fabric can disintegrate if the influences sustaining them are neglected, and social breakdown follows. The immediate casualty is what he called graciousness; the ultimate loss is the loss of freedom itself.

This is a salutary reminder to the bishops of the Anglican Communion that concerns over issues of internal church order, important though they may be, should not be allowed to loom so large as to overshadow the function religion plays at a basic level in society, the role of holding things together "in covenant". It is a warning to all organised religions, in fact, that they have responsibilities beyond their own interests. And in the current Anglican case, perhaps, there is an implicit warning here not to fight each other so hard over matters of principle that they do themselves permanent injury. Any fundamental weakening of the Church of England, and indeed of any other national religious institution, constitutes a threat to the good of society as a whole.